May, Siófok and HSM conference again

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It’s great that no one has to travel from Pest to Buda or from one part of the country to another if they need to discuss common issues with several people, and it’s also useful that those who are prevented from going to another country or continent because of lack of time or money, or because they are environmentally conscious, don’t have to miss major events at major conferences, because they can see and hear everything and have their say through the Internet programmes.

But meeting in person is different. We had distinguished lecturers who delivered great talks.
The program included three plenary lectures given by Attila Losonczy (Univ Columbia, NY), Péter Török (Univ Singapore), Roberto Balboni (Univ Bologna) – Nobel Prize winner, Joachim Frank who would present his one-hour talk via Zoom.

The presentations for the Young Lecturer Award also went well, with Evelyn Orsó and Tamás Kolonits presiding expertly. The prize was won by Péter Szocsics (KOKI), Tímea Hegedűs (SZTE) was the special winner, while the “audience award” if there had been one, would probably have gone to Mihály Pósfai.

The only afternoon session was in honor of Árpád Barna. It was introduced by Béla Pécz, and in addition to his immediate colleagues (Péter Barna, ” the two Radnóczi” and Miklós Menyhárd) we invited our distinguished colleague Andris Kovács from Jülich. As in every case, his talk was worth listening to by everyone!
After the presentations, it was officially announced that Technoorg Linda Ltd., with the moral and some financial support of HSM, will establish a prize in memory of Árpád Barna. The prize will be announced within a year.

Saturday started with a very well-received presentation by Roberto Balboni. It was well structured, interesting and easy to follow, and was enjoyed by both material and life scientists. Our last speaker, Bence Rácz (ATE), demonstrated his mastery of applied techniques with some very nice TEM images, and his dynamic presentation style attracted the interest of the audience, which led to questions and rapturous applause.

Before the conference was officially closed, we thanked János Lábár for his more than two decades of work as a board member of MMT and as a regular speaker, including his recent talk on qubits, which few had previously imagined might have a connection with electron microscopy.
We also thanked Zoltán Kónya for his activities as a board member of HSM, and for sending young people from his department and laboratory to give lectures every year.